Hi Anitar. I don't think that the friends here at JWD are 'anti-witness' While fading or whatever we need to decompress. Along with that the need to vent, is really necessary and really healthy. Some stick around for awhile and others leave to live their lives again. This is a support group of sorts. My personal anger is gone now and I think I'm somewhere between acceptance and humor. While I probably don't need to be here anymore I still need a comfort area. I like reading the posts of newbies and seeing their growth of independence. It's been a long day today and I think I'm starting to babble now. Till another day. 15 days to the ABC fest.
Another Deceitful Tactic by the WTBTS.
by gumby 56 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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gumby
Anitar, I realise you mean well, and no i'm not upset with you, and I appreciate your kind words I guess I really don't see what it is you are tying to say however. You feel the watchtower needs to be dubunked, yet it seems you think this forum isn't a place to dubunk them but rather a place to show a christian attitude towards them and try to win them over
You said,
I think the best way to prove them wrong is to not give them the pleasure of debating them.
If the watchtower society isn't debated, then how do you feel they will be exposed and brought to their knees? Who is it exactly that's going to bring them down and expose them if not people such as ourselves? Are you aware of the changes within the organisation due to the exposer of them by the means of sites such as this one? Do you remember the UN case?
Do you actually think that were this site nothing more than christians being nice to them it would have one iota of an impact if debating wasn't involved? Witnesses see nice christians all the time in their lives and it means nothing to them, so seeing them here would only tell them that we have returned to the vomit and become part of the whore "Babylon the Great"
If you give the watchtower an inch, they will become a ruler. The point is, the watchtower is a cult, but do we really want to become the anti-watchtower cult?
Exactly how is debating with them ..."giving them an inch? I'm confused. I would think debating with them isn't giving them ANY room at all frankly. I think if you stick around here long enough, you'll learn that those who have exited by means of this site and others like it, did so by seeing the WTBTS exposed......not because they saw people acting like true christans......although the latter become a factor once they see the watchtower society is nothing more than a magazine publishing company
Call me crazy, but what if we could be our own support group?
That's partly what JWD is.
Maybe we could use this forum as a means to change people for the better, to be living examples of Jesus Christ without the burdons of man's rules and twisted organizations.
There are plenty here that do just that.
Gumby
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Anitar
Gumby, I think you got me there. I've just had such a bad lifetime of experiences with religion and my mom being a witness, I've grown distrustful of all organizations. I trust only myself, because that is all I have left. I was trying to relate your article to myself, and how I have given up on trying to reason with my mother, and saw evidently you are a strong advocate for debate, whereas I turned my back and said "to hell with them, let them be brainwashed."
So that's what turned me off, and I'm sorry. I guess I was trying to find a hole in your discussion, a flaw in your logic. I'm still not sure if I have the stomach to attempt your approach. I want very much to learn and research the watchtower's history and its psychological manipulations. But everytime I do, I get sick to my stomach and have to turn my computer off because I can see what a disgusting lie she is living, especially when the truth is a mere inches away from her face.
She disappears for 10 to 12 hours at a time in "service," and comes back with her strange friends humming "Loyally Submitting To The Theocratic Order." She frightens me too death with her random apacolypitic outbursts. "I lost my car keys! Satan's fighting against me! If I could just do 10 more hours of service a month, then maybe I will be good enough." She went from being an independent, smart, logical and loving woman my whole life to an unrecgonizable paranoid drone within 9 months. So yes, I guess you could say I have given up.
Is it hard to say this? Absolutely. Do I regret misjudging you? Of course. But I find it ironic how two strangers so far apart could have so much in common. It goes against everything I was ever taught. I really was beginning to think I was alone.
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silversurfer1
Anitar,
My heart goes out to you. To see this transformation in your Mom has to really tear you apart and frustrate you. I see this in my Mom as well and she is not nearly as zealous as your mom seems to be. The differance is, you saw your mother change before your eyes. I, on the other hand believed and lived as my mother did all my life only to wake up and now standing from a distance see the same vomit inducing situation in my mom as you have seen in yours. (kind of like a strange & twisted JW version of the old SciFi movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers) My mom argues that if it was good enough for me up to the age of 43 than it's good enough for her now and into the future. In those rare moments that she will allow me to try and reason with her, she can't answer a single question posed to her because she doesn't know anything (not to say many JW's don't know their beleifs well enough to engage you) after 40 years of nominal meeting attendance, no personal study and half hearted field service activity. Thus with frustration we end this particular part of our conversation. (Hell, my df'd brother, df'd for 15+ years, thinks I'm crazy because I KNOW I am in Christ hands and know I'll be with Him in heaven and won't have know conversation with me what so ever about the bible, thinking that I will corrupt him. Can you beleive that?) But I always hope that a seed has been planted with my mom (as well as my son's) and I pray that someone else may indeed water it. And I leave it to God to make it grow.
I have read many of your comments and I actually enjoy the angle you bring (not ever being personally contaminated as myself) because I can't say I would ever think of the ideas you express since I grew up a JW and thats all I knew. I think we all benefit from a wide range of views rather we agree with them or not. Keep'um coming.
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gumby
Anitar and surferdue.....thanks again for sharing what you have said....just remember you both have lots of company in the same boat as you both are.
Anitar....first of all, I thought you was a girl....lol
You my freind are simply in a stage of this show all ex-witnesses go through. I've been through many and am still goping through them since exiting 11 years ago.
I turned christain, had an intrest in informing people about witnesses I met in person when the situation presented itself, took in all the information I could about the witnesses through tapes, books, mail, etc. Then, left religion (though i'm still spiritual in ways), got tired of talking about the witness and just joked around here at JWD with little input about witness stories, then posted anti-bible stuff, then cooled it on that, ....then I once again get in the mode I'm in now and feel like posting something informative about the witnesses again.
The point is......we continually change in our thinking in all that has been said, from one side to the other. But one thing is certain in all of this is that peoples lives are being ruined by the WTBTS. Either materially ruined, mortally ruined, spiritually ruined, or emotionally ruined........and this needs to be stopped by the various means and efforts of others who realise all of this. I choose this method as it is having tremendous results.....that being exposing the Jehovah's Witnesses via the internet. Plus......you don't hafta confront the witness bastards in person
Gumby
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thecarpenter
I say we confront the witness bastards in person, yeah....
I remember there used to be this guy who would stand in front of bethel in the early 1980's and hurl insults at them in the morning, at lunch time and at the end of the workday. It would be cool to get a large plasma tv and play recorded messages exposing the watchtower everyday, dem bastards...
thecarpenter of the name calling bastard class -
gumby
thecarpenter of the name calling bastard class
I second that!
Gumbastard